Market adoption of wireless LAN (WLAN) technology has exploded, as users from a wide range of backgrounds and vertical industries have brought this technology into their homes, offices, and increasingly into the public air space. This inflection point has highlighted not only the limitations of earlier-generation systems, but the changing role WLAN technology now plays in people's work and lifestyles, across the globe. Indeed, WLANs are rapidly changing from convenience networks to business-critical networks. Increasingly users are depending on WLANs to improve the timeliness and productivity of their communications and applications, and in doing so, require greater visibility, security, management, and performance from their network.
As enterprises and other entities increasingly rely on wireless networks, the monitoring and configuration of wireless access points in a wireless network environment becomes critical to performance and security. Wireless network systems deployed in a typical enterprise environment, however, can comprise a large number of elements that must be managed, such as wireless access points and wireless switches. Accordingly, network management systems are generally required to monitor operation of the wireless network and manage the wireless network elements that provide wireless service.
A network management system is a software system that controls, manages, and retrieves status information from devices in a communications network. Generally speaking, a network management system includes functionality to administer and manage a network, such as network topology, software configuration, downloading of software, network performance monitoring, network operation and maintenance, and observing and troubleshooting problems. In many implementations, a network management system is typically run on a workstation that presents a graphical user interface (GUI) to a network administrator and provides access to a wide variety of information regarding network configuration, performance, and status. To gather information, network management systems often exchange information with the managed network elements using a network management protocol, such as the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
The status or security information associated with wireless networks, in which a network administrator may be interested, includes the operational status of the access points, the load on the access points, the presence of rogue access points, and radio frequency statistics, such as coverage, signal strength, and interference. Indeed, management of enterprise or other large-scale wireless networks requires frequent monitoring of a variety of status information to ensure that adequate service levels are achieved. The large amounts of information can become unwieldy as the number of managed elements increases. While network management systems generally allow network administrators to specify a variety of filters and generate different reports, the network administrator must often wade through vast amounts of information to identify potential or actual problems, which can be a time consuming and inefficient process.
In light of the foregoing, a need in the art exists for methods, apparatuses and systems that facilitate the monitoring and management tasks associated with wireless network systems. A need also exists for methods, apparatuses and systems that allow network administrators to quickly view status information and ‘drill down’ to different geographies, campuses, buildings, floors and other regions within a wireless network environment for better visibility and control. Embodiments of the present invention substantially fulfill these needs.